1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of knitting a plating stitch capable of forming a clear colored pattern and a knit fabric.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A colored design can be knitted by a plating stitch using a flat knitting machine having a plurality of yarn carriers which can be driven independently of one another and through which threads reciprocatingly move to the right and the left (for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 5-321101). The term "plating stitch" used hereinafter is defined as a method of knitting carried out using two types of different threads each having a different color, gloss, thickness, twist and fiber material wherein one of the threads appears on a front side and the other appears on a back side.
For example, when a knit fabric A as shown in FIG. 5 is to be knitted, a plainly stitched structure portion A1 is knitted by an plating yarn "c" only at the first half portion of a first right-going course C1. The platingly stitched portion A2 of the plainly stitched structure is knitted by a ground yarn "a" and the plating yarn "c" in the second half portion of the first course C1. A similar platingly stitched portion A2 is knitted in the first half portion of a next left-going course C2, the plainly stitched structure portion A1 is knitted by the plating yarn "c" only in the second half portion of the next course C2 and the same procedure is repeated thereafter.
As a result, there can be knitted the knit fabric A having a colored pattern and design arranged such that the plating yarn "c" and the ground yarn "a" appear to the surface of the plainly stitched structure portion A1 and the platingly stitched portion A2, respectively. Since this knitting method can continuously form the plainly stitched structure over the entire portion of the respective courses C1 and C2 and thus since it is sufficient only to cause all the needles to carry out knitting operation, the method has high productivity and there is no possibility that a defect in the outside appearance of the stitched structure occurs at the boundary A0 between the plainly stitched structure portion A1 and the platingly stitched portion A2.
It should be noted that in FIG. 5, the symbols (c, a) in the second half portion of the right-going course C1 and the symbols (a, c) in the first half portion of the next left-going course C2 shows the plating stitch made by the ground yarn "a" and the plating yarn "c". The reason why the symbols a and c are reversed in those courses is that a thread fed from the yarn carrier preceding a knitting direction appears to a front stitch and a thread fed from the thread feed port following the above thread feed port appears to a back stitch in the plating stitch. Further, arrows shown in the respective courses C1, C2 show the directions in which the respective courses C1, C2 are knitted and symbol trains .OMEGA., .OMEGA. . . . .OMEGA. written parallel to the straight lines showing the respective courses C1, C2 show that the needles for knitting the respective courses C1, C2 carry out knitting operation.
In the above noted prior art, since the plainly stitched structure portion and the platingly stitched portion forming the colored pattern of the knit fabric. The plainly stitched structure portion is knitted by the plating yarn only and the plating stitch of the latter is formed by the ground yarn and the plating yarn. As a result, there is a drawback that since the thickness the platingly stitched portion of the knit fabric forming the colored pattern is different twice as compared with that of the plainly stitched structure portion, the range to which the knit fabric is applied is limited. Further in the case where the thickness of the ground yarn is reduced to flatten the variation of the thickness of the knit fabric by extremely thinning the size of the ground yarn, it is difficult to completely cover the plating yarn with the ground yarn and it is observed that the plating yarn is mixed with the front stitch of the platingly stitched portion, there is a possibility that the tone of color of a colored pattern is lowered.